---
title: They just had to run after him right or left as best they could. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They just had to run after him right or left as best they could. Who acts: goose. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Goose, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Goose, sentence 35

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They just had to run after him right or left as best they could.

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**Who acts:** goose · **What happens:** have, run, leave

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Goose. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (goose), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg540:48:35
# text = They just had to run after him right or left as best they could.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	just	just	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	run	run	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	after	after	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	_
8	right	right	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
9	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	advcl	_	_
11	as	as	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	10	parataxis	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | goose |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **run** | to-infinitive | goose *not said here* |  |  |  | after Dullhead |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **leave** | participle | goose *not said here* |  |  |  |  | right *property* | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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